


Peer Pressure

by hailingstars



Series: Febuwhump [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Febuwhump, Loneliness, Parent Tony Stark, Peer Pressure, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Piano, or the aftermath of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 04:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17635931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hailingstars/pseuds/hailingstars
Summary: Tony picks up his son at the police station after he's arrested and doubts his ability to be a parent.





	Peer Pressure

Tony Stark sat in the reception area of a local police station. The chair under him was plastic, and uncomfortable. He let it build the rage brewing his chest.

Peter was supposed to be an improvement, not a sequel, but this… this stunt was reminiscent of Tony’s own teenage years. Somehow, it was Tony’s fault. He was sure. Teenage boys didn’t wind up getting arrested on Friday nights if they had good role models at home, and while he was stuck sitting in that chair, waiting for his _child_ to be released from _jail,_ he tried to figure it out. That exact moment when he fucked up everything for Peter.

He didn’t have enough time to relive every parenting mistake he’s made, though. Peter emerged from a long hallway, holding a plastic bag with his wallet and cellphone inside. He didn’t dare look up from his shoes as the cop escorted him to Tony, and that was probably a good move. Tony didn’t trust himself not to burn the boy with his glare. 

It was a silent walk out of the station and to the car Happy had waiting for them. It was shoes crunching against loose gravel, and Peter looking all around but never at Tony. He was looking all around, too. For the press. For any sign of some vulture with a camera. They were lucky, and they made it into the car without any photos of them being snapped.

Tony waited until the door slammed shut to let out his frustration. “What were you thinking?”

Peter looked away, narrowed his eyes to stare out the window, and scrunched up his face as if he’d suddenly gotten ice cold water dumped on him, and maybe he had. Maybe there was venom in his tone, but he didn’t know how to communicate to Peter that it was directed at himself, not his son. Never at his kid. At the circumstances, maybe, or at whichever one of Tony’s fuckups caused this.

“I…” 

“You know what it doesn’t matter,” said Tony. “I don’t wanna hear it.”

Tony was too afraid for explanations. No matter what Peter said, it all came back him and he wasn’t ready to be confronted with his own mistakes, wasn’t ready to be confronted with the idea that he screwed up as spectacularly as Howard.

Peter fell silent and looked to divert his attention outside the window, while Tony gripped the edge of the armrest and pretended he didn’t see Happy eying him questions through the rearview mirror.

One breath in, one breath out. Give it time, give it space, because Tony sure as hell didn’t trust himself to say anything when he was that anxious. It was a silent, slightly awkward ride home, and when they got home, they went their separate ways. Tony to his workshop, and Peter to his room to get dressed for bed, like the good kid he was, like the very reason him getting arrested on a Friday night didn’t make any damn sense.

* * *

Tony Stark sat on a piano bench, in the middle of the night, playing the notes over and over again. Classic rock songs didn’t sound the same on piano, but it was a mix of two things that calmed him down the most, ever since he stopped drinking years ago. Drinking wasn’t good for his relationship with Peter, or so said the therapist, and also, Peter’s therapist. The Starks were big fans of therapy. They couldn’t afford not to be.

“Dad?” 

Tony turned and saw Peter’s silhouette in the doorway. 

“Can I come in?”

Tony nodded, and Peter walked further inside the room with hesitant steps. Anxious, just like Tony, and just like Tony wouldn’t ever approach Howard all the way, Peter stopped in the middle of the room, half way between the door and the piano where Tony sat, his feet shuffling around where he stood.

“Umm I’m sorry? I didn’t mean to get arrested, and Harry said it wasn’t a big deal,” said Peter. All his feet shuffling brought him closer. “I…”

He broke off, then found his voice again.

“I just wanted them to like me.”

“That’s ridiculous, Peter,” said Tony. His anxious anger from earlier disappeared completely, evaporated by that lost look in Peter’s eyes. “Everyone likes you.”

It was true. The world had chosen their favorite Stark, and it wasn’t Iron Man.

Peter shook his head violently, desperately, and Tony felt the tension in his muscles fade away and get replaced with something else. An instinct, maybe, because Tony knows he sometimes struggles as a father but there wasn’t anything in the world that could stop him from comforting his son when he was upset.

And Peter was definitely upset. He closed the distance between with something between a run and a leap. He slid down on the bench next to Tony so close he could see his brown eyes were wet. 

“They like me because I’m your son,” he said. “No one likes me for me, no one even sees me for me and I… I don’t fit _anywhere._ I’m just me… alone, all the time, even when I’m not alone.”

Alarms rang in Tony’s head, alarms that prompted him to seek and destroy the feeling of loneliness before it swallowed his son whole. He knew what that monster could do to a person, and he knew something more impressive than his repulsor beams to kill it. He didn’t know exactly how to fix this, but he did what was natural.

He pulled Peter into a hug.

“You fit here,” said Tony, and he felt Peter shake his head against his shoulder.

“You don’t count. You think I walk on water.”

Tony pushed Peter forward a bit but held him by his shoulders. “What? No I don’t.” 

“Dad. You’ve had restaurant menus I scribbled on framed.” 

“You were coloring inside the lines way before any of the other kids,” said Tony. He felt like this was completely reasonably, but he didn’t dare tell Peter about the collection of colored on napkins, from all the restaurants too fancy to offer paper kids menus, he kept in a scrapbook.

Peter rolled his eyes, and Tony wondered if his overreaction from earlier stemmed from this, that he was completely wild for this kid and seeing him act anything less than what himself was just so damn heartbreaking. Still, he must be doing something right, though. He must not be completely like Howard. As a teenager, Tony had never been able to complain that his father loved him too much.

It was a major difference, and it put Tony’s anxiety to rest.

He looked at Peter, and his sad eyes made him want to yell at all those moronic prep school kids that made him feel like he didn’t fit in. Instead of getting names and numbers, like he wanted to do, he hugged Peter again. 

“You’re gonna find friends, Pete,” said Tony. “Real friends. Not these punks you were with tonight.”

“Not at my school.”

“Well, what if you changed schools?” 

Peter was the one to pull back this time. “What? Really?”

“Trust me after tonight I want you as far away from those kids as possible,” said Tony. “And, besides, you’re old enough to choose where you want to go, right?” 

Tony knew it was the right decision by the way Peter’s face lit up and by the way the boy tackled him so hard they both almost fell off the piano bench.

“I love you, dad.”

“I love you too,” said Tony. “But you’re still grounded.” 

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

Tony smiled and wondered why he ever let his brain trick him into thinking his and Peter’s relationship was anywhere that of him and his father’s. They would never be like that. He was determined, and Peter made it easy. He was just too perfect.

“Still know how to play?” asked Tony.

Peter shrugged and looked at keys. “Of course, it’s all just math.”

Tony leaned back, and Peter played a song he’d never heard before. Probably, if Tony had heard it on the radio or blasting through Peter’s headphone speakers, he’d written it off as an annoying pop song without any real bang to it, but Peter was playing it and there wasn’t a single note out of place.

* * *

 

Months later Tony Stark sat in a chair in a school auditorium. It was uncomfortable, but he was in the front row and had the best view. Peter was killing it. He got every question right, and he answered each one with a smile. Tony didn’t want to miss any of it, but because Peter would definitely not be smiling if he looked into the audience and saw Tony recording him on his cellphone, he paid some kid he saw in the hallway to record the entire decathlon met for him. 

It would go in his archive of Peter videos, the ones he kept a secret just like his scrapbook of napkin drawings, so someday he could them pull out and show his grandchildren. He hoped that day was a long way off, though. Tony wasn’t nearly old enough to be a Grandpa.

“How’s he doing?” whispered Pepper, as she plopped down in the chair next to him. She was late only so Tony didn’t have to be.

“Like always,” said Tony. “He’s the smartest one up there.”

“Aww and he looks so happy,” said Pepper. “This school is a great fit for him.”

Tony nodded, and turned his attention back to the stage just as Peter earned even more points for his team. Him and his nerd buddy, the one who he builds Legos with on the weekends, fist bump each other under the table. His kid wasn’t alone. His kid wasn’t in jail. His kid was happy, and that’s all that mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> soooo originally that whole last scene didn't exist, then I realize I created a world where Peter and Ned never met and I know we're all here for the whump and angst but that just feels too far. anyway, thanks for reading!


End file.
